When I first started GMing I had no idea what I had to have prepared in order to have a successful game.  It drove me nuts.  Sometimes I would have pages and pages of stuff written, names, places and ideas but the game would fall flat and I wouldn't know why.

Other times friends would gather and I'd run soemthing off the fly, entirely improv, making it up as I go and the game would rock.

Usually, during those improv-off-the-fly games I would write down a notebook page's worth of notes.

One of those off-the-fly games was set on the under-side of the Spelljammer setting's Rock of Bral, a place I was enamored with.  I decided it was a prison and the game would be set there.  The only guidance I gave the players during chargen was that they were in the Rock for a crime and they weren't framed.  Whatever it was, they did it.

I filled a notebook page with the guards' names, the warden and other prisoners.  Of course these other prisoners, all Drow, Yuan-ti, a Ronin Space Captain from the Imperial Navy were all bangs.  I didn't realize what I had to have down until years later but I had to have bangs, situations the players felt compelled to react to and deal with.

I think I capitalized on the real positive energy of those one-shots when people didn' t expect to game but were really excited to do so, a happy surprise and the chatter during character generation was how that notebook paper's worth of notes was compiled.

Fast forward.

Now I don't have to read minds.  I've got Kickers, Descriptors, Spiritual Attributes, Beliefs, Instincts, Keys, Secrets, Drives, Passions, Traits, Relationships and such.  What excites the players about the game is written on the character sheet.  I can take everyone's sheets and come up with the game right there and then.

My first really successful use of this was The Riddle of Steel.

When you first play TRoS there is a tendency to keep your eye on the combat mechanics.  They are filled with charts and seem daunting but for the GM, that isn't what is really important at all.  What is important are the Spiritual Attributes.

More worried about the combat, I set up a series of judicial duels with pre-made NPC's so that the players could take these NPC's and whack on each other without risking their PC's lives in the brutal combat.  Two farmers broke each other's collar bones with staves.  Two ship captains whacked on each other in heavily armored maul vs maul combat until one got his hip broken from a good shot.

Two excellent swordsman, professional judicial duelists dueled to the first blood, a brillian back and forth ending with one taking a gash on the leg.  Nice stuff.

Then, for whatever reason, I threw in this odd duel at the end to show how combat worked two-on-one.  I put in a shit-hot duelist who was hired to duel two men who had raped a young girl who was well loved in her community.  These two men were sons of prominent nobles.  The duelist did well but then flubbed a roll and got stabbed in the face.

The PC's were watching these duels too, we had decided.  They looked at their SA's concerning justice and such and could not let this duel stand.  They stepped up and challenged the young men again.  The young man accepted.

The PC's, with their SA's firing, mopped the floor with them.  One was killed and the other was given the option to jump off of the bridge after his sword hand was maimed.  This encounter set off the entire adventuer, a long conflict with the noble house they so offended.

Accidentally, I had tripped over the players' SA's.  They looked at me like I was a mad genius for planning it that way but I hadn't.  I didn't know that the lone swordsman would die and I didn' t at all realize that the players would look at hteir SA's and step up to right the wrongs with their swords.

Neat.

Another story about the Riddle, I was remaking a D&D character for a Midnight solo game.  The player was struggling over Spiritual Attributes.  We had been playing for a few months and he had around ten so far.  He was talking about how his character found X importand but Y to be more important.

I was watching this one SA, "I hunt creatures of shadow," fall lower and lower on the list, even though I knew that JJ loves hunting things in-game.  He and his whole family are hunters and his house, during the deer season, is a hunting lodge where all of his dad's buddies hang out.  I had my epiphany about SA's right there and then.  "JJ, this isn't about what is important to your character.  This is about what is important to JJ about this character."  The list of SA's was trimmed down right there and then to an easy five that made for good game because JJ was into 'em.

This brings us to Sorcerer.  When you hand the players a list of descriptors, you are, in fact, handing them a list of things from the setting.  The players get to look at the parts of the setting and tell you right there, what parts interest them by writing them down on their character sheet.

No shit.

I don't have to write a long history of the world beginning with some hackneyed world creation myth.  I don't have to write much at all.

When I ran Sorcerer a few years ago, the Sorcerous Month, I saw the process go again and again.  I would go to the group with 2 or 3 ideas.  They would pick the one they were excited about.  We would meet to make up characters and there would be this lovely silence as I handed out the descriptors and everyone read them over.  Often someone would mention how there should be an extra one and we'd add it.

They would begin to choose their descriptors.  If there were people who choose the same ones, it often was an excuse for their characters to know each other.

But then, the players get to set the tone for the whole shebang via their Kicker.  "Here are your toys, Mr. GM, but here's how I want to use them."

This brings me to Burning Wheel.

The Beliefs are your sign-posts.  I go into the game with one or two bangs per PC's belief.  Usually I only use one or two and the rest of the players riff and get into the conflict caused by one player's reaction.

Example:

Kolja's character has an Instinct: When I am someone I am not supposed to be, I sneak.

This says to me, he wants to be in places where he isn't supposed to be.  He had set up a meeting with a Baron's nephew but the kid was standing him up, not giving the information like he said he would when threatened at knife-point.  So Kolja's sneaky sorcerer stalked him.  He failed his Stealth roll.  It became a cat and mouse game through the back-alleys as the sorcerer set his trap for the evil knights of the baron.

The nephew's bodyguards began stalking him and after a brutal struggle they captured him.  The rest of the group spent a few good hours of solid dramatic gaming getting Kolja's PC back from the Baron's dungeon.  Fun stuff.  Hours of gaming from one off-the-cuff bang written next to an Instinct.

This brings me to The Shadow of Yesterday.

The players were very much inspired by Fafrd and the Grey Mouser.  Hell, one of them was even a ratkin hired knife and the other was this S&M barbarian with the Key of Unrequited Love for this cute ratkin barmaid.

When the S&M barbarian was captured by the Church of the Leviathan, the ratkin knife took, The Key of Vengeance, swearing to get back at the church that stole his friend.  And the adventure was ON as the ratkin sneaked in and the barbarian broke out.

What is neat about keys is players get to tell you which NPC's excite them right then and there.  "Damn, those pirate worshippers of the Leviathan are bastards; I'm taking Key of Vengeance on them!"  And the GM has his road-map for the game.

TSoY's GMing advice is pretty neat too.  It also asks the GM to throw in some stuff the GM digs too, just because.  I dig that.

I was also shocked to find that when I was writing up a Planescape mod for TSoY, alignment worked really well for me.  It was always a kind of proto-SA, a strange way to tell the GM what kind of moral conflicts you were interested in but with Keys they just shined.

Life is easier since these parts of the character sheet have been around.  I don't have to write up a world, just enough so the players can tell me what excites them.  All of my GM muscle goes into chargen, making solid bangs, setting cool stakes, setting up fun conflicts, and making sure the players are having fun.

Those notebook papers with ideas and places and names were my bangs but I had no real way to say how I used them or what they did.  I only know I needed them and a few of each were aimed at each player.  I didn't understand why some would get thrown out onto the table and ignored but it was simply because the players didn't care.  The players didn't care and I had nothing on their character sheets, or very little, to tell me what they cared about.

And to conclude with a BW game I am setting up now, kind of a medieval A-Team type of deal.  One of the players was saying that he wasn't sure what kind of skills to take because he ewasn't sure what kind of mission it would be.  "I won't know either, until I take a look at everyone's Beliefs and Instincts and Traits."

I won't know where the adventure is going to go until I know what you give a shit about.

I had been thinking about this for a while but a few recent blog entries forced my hand:

Deep in the Game:In Plain Words

Heads or Tales: Mother Head Scratchers

Hi Judd,

Yep, I'd been doing this for some time, calling the various things "Flags" or "Markers".  My recent post was pretty much the realization that the GM should not have the option to NOT hit on one of those- it might as well be a menu and you can only pick the items there for setting up scenes.

Chris

Bankuei wrote:
Hi Judd,

Yep, I'd been doing this for some time, calling the various things "Flags" or "Markers".  My recent post was pretty much the realization that the GM should not have the option to NOT hit on one of those- it might as well be a menu and you can only pick the items there for setting up scenes.

Chris

Hi Judd,

I can understand the "uncomfortableness", but if you look at actual play, I bet it's not a restriction at all.  I mean, few people consider it "limiting" to play a single character- as a GM, you're probably going to get at least 3 or 4 ways to push thematic buttons for each player- which means we're talking 9 or more options for every scene, and assuming you have normal rights to frame scenes and conflicts- that's not very limiting at all.

In a way, its a reversal of traditional play- instead of players looking to the GM for signals on where to go next, the GM is looking to the players for signals of what to frame next.  It makes your job easier, not harder.

Chris

I'm a complete convert to the need for flags and markers as overt signals to the GM that "this, THIS is what I, the real person playing the game, want the story of my character to be about.  This is what I come to the table for and would enjoy."

That said, I'm wondering if Flags need to be mechanical components of the system, or part of the reward mechanism, as in TROS SAs?  I think I'd be more comfortable as a GM with devevloping a set of techniques, dialogues, or questions to be used in pre-game prep to tease out or get the player to decide on and clearly express their goals for play, than having to hardwire this into game mechanics (but I realize that I'm going against the tide of Forge design ideals in this preference).

Anyone seen or given any thought to ways to get this info out of the players without making it part of the game rules?  I'd like to see a process or technique that could be applied regardless of what system was being prepped for.

John

johnmarron wrote:
I'm a complete convert to the need for flags and markers as overt signals to the GM that "this, THIS is what I, the real person playing the game, want the story of my character to be about.  This is what I come to the table for and would enjoy."

That said, I'm wondering if Flags need to be mechanical components of the system, or part of the reward mechanism, as in TROS SAs?  I think I'd be more comfortable as a GM with devevloping a set of techniques, dialogues, or questions to be used in pre-game prep to tease out or get the player to decide on and clearly express their goals for play, than having to hardwire this into game mechanics (but I realize that I'm going against the tide of Forge design ideals in this preference).

Anyone seen or given any thought to ways to get this info out of the players without making it part of the game rules?  I'd like to see a process or technique that could be applied regardless of what system was being prepped for.

John

I think something that people who dislike this kind of information embeded in the game mechanics miss is the fact that the majority of these games also include real-time update rules for that information.  Just because you ask pointed questions at the start of your campaign about a player's character doesn't mean it's going to stay that way.

In The Riddle of Steel the players can change their spiritual atributes and indeed when I run it I let them do it anytime they want, mid-session if they like.  I've introduced stuff in play that caused a player to rewrite two or even three of their spiritual attributes.  Add to that the fact that SAs are meta-game values, so,  just because a player removes "Passion: Love For My Wife" doesn't mean that character doesn't love his wife or that his love for his wife is somehow deminished it just means the player isn't interested in having his love for his wife be an issue at the moment.

So the SAs act as a real-time vector of what the player wants the game to be about right here, right now.  And if something catches their interest they have the ability to update that vector to say, "more please" or "less of that" as they see fit.

Jesse

johnmarron wrote:
Anyone seen or given any thought to ways to get this info out of the players without making it part of the game rules?  I'd like to see a process or technique that could be applied regardless of what system was being prepped for.

johnmarron wrote: Anyone seen or given any thought to ways to get this info out of the players without making it part of the game rules?  I'd like to see a process or technique that could be applied regardless of what system was being prepped for.

Bankuei wrote:
Hi Judd,

I can understand the "uncomfortableness", but if you look at actual play, I bet it's not a restriction at all.  I mean, few people consider it "limiting" to play a single character- as a GM, you're probably going to get at least 3 or 4 ways to push thematic buttons for each player- which means we're talking 9 or more options for every scene, and assuming you have normal rights to frame scenes and conflicts- that's not very limiting at all.

In a way, its a reversal of traditional play- instead of players looking to the GM for signals on where to go next, the GM is looking to the players for signals of what to frame next.  It makes your job easier, not harder.

Chris

Hi Brendan,

(Smile)- right.  My breakthrough wasn't in recognizing we ought to be using flags, that I figured out a few years back.  It was that I asked the question, "Why the hell would you want to NOT use flags?" and I was left without an answer.  I mean, if Flags = what people find interesting, then veering from that means you are openly ignoring what everyone is telling you to make the game about.

"Well, Joan and I are voting we go see Harry Potter, John and Louis want to see Narnia, what do you think?"
"We're watching Pride And Prejudice!"
Everyone: "Um, well, if you -really- want to see it, I guess we'll go along..."

Chris

Hey Judd,

That's the best description of why system matters I've seen in a while.

: )

For John,  I can deeply empathize with liking your flags & markers to be narrative in form.  Looking at #'s on a sheet can completely break my creativity.  But another nice thing about all this new-fangled innovation is that making the mechanics mattter doesn't have to come in one form.  Narrative based free-form flags work as well as any stat. Better even at times.  The thing about having the markers not be anywhere on the char/resource sheet is that then, what goes there? The stuff that doesn't matter to anyone, and that's the mess we're trying to get out of. That we are now out of, as Judd's chronology exemplifies.  Hope I got the jist of your question, anyway. 

"Well, Joan and I are voting we go see Harry Potter, John and Louis want to see Narnia, what do you think?"
"We're watching Pride And Prejudice!"
Everyone: "Um, well, if you -really- want to see it, I guess we'll go along..."

Judd -- pure gold.  Your post helped me put my finger on something that's been bugging me about Nobilis for a while now:  Chargen forces you to think about your character's Estate, and you have to define your characters moral Code, strengths and weaknesses, and even some important NPC's (Anchors). 

The problem is, the GM is then faced with a group of identically-formatted laundry list of potential Markers.  But then you have to play mind-reading games to figure out which of these Markers is live and wired in to the player's interests, and which is just sitting there, spun out by the player out of Simmish interest or, worse, dredged up in order to have a filled-out character sheet. 

To expand on my already long post: there's a houserule I like that allows PC's to get more magical energy from their bonds to the things they love, and which also encourages them to take strong bonds to a limited number of things.  Now it seems that the best thing about this house rule is that it makes it a lot easier for players and GM to identify which are the real Markers!  (There should be a good term for false Flags, BTW.  "I thought his wife was a Flag, but she was just a Dud.")
I

Dan,

I'm glad I helped with something that's been rattling around in your head.  That is a great feeling.

Do you want to take that idea of the flag vs. the dud and make it its own thread?

It seems important enough to be.

Just a thought,

Judd

This is all good stuff.  One thing I would add, though, is that the GM might want to be up front and explicit about using flags in this way, and should make sure the players are actually interested in what they're putting down on their character sheet.

I suppose this touches on the "flags vs. duds" question: while producing a PTA game recently, I built the bangs for one player's spotlight episode by looking at his character sheet and putting together the different elements (f'rex, Bang #1 related the Issue to a connection, bang #2 related his issue to his concept, bang #3 related but his nemesis between his goal and a connection, etc.).  Now, this was exactly how I had prepped for earlier spotlight episodes in the series, and, up until this point, I had had lots of success.  But, with this player, everything just fell flat.  It wasn't until about halfway through the episode that I realized that the player wasn't interested in his character's issue and had only chosen it because he thought it "fit the genre".

Jon wrote: This is all good stuff.  One thing I would add, though, is that the GM might want to be up front and explicit about using flags in this way, and should make sure the players are actually interested in what they're putting down on their character sheet.

Jon wrote:
This is all good stuff.  One thing I would add, though, is that the GM might want to be up front and explicit about using flags in this way, and should make sure the players are actually interested in what they're putting down on their character sheet.

Hi Brand,

Usually, the solution I've found best for this is somethign like the TSOY version where you can dump one key and buy another -- letting you get out of situations you've come to find unfun.

The other really valuable thing that flags and markers do is allow the GM to spot a problem during chargen with greater ease.

Last month I got into a vicious argument with one of my players whose conduct at the table I found lacking.  The argument turned into a My Guy Disconnect and a brutal round of e-mails that turned from a gaming argument to an argument that had nothing to do with gaming at all, tapping into something else, something really messed up deep in the friendship that I just hadn't known was there.

When I looked back at the Beliefs and Instincts he wrote down during chargen, I slapped my head and should have realized that they shouldn't have been allowed at the table; I should have asked him to shape them differently.

The friendship crap it devolved into had nothing to do with flags and markers.

But the My Guy Syndrome that the argument began with was right there in front of me in the Beliefs and Instincts on the character sheet.

Flags and markers = glowing neon signs of player intention.

Paka wrote:

But why not just have it tied to the system?

I say the following with a smile on my face and I'm not meaning any condescension: John, man, I don't getcha, really I don't.

John,

I feel like we are in danger of disagreeing just becaus we are on the internet here.

The following statement in particular I agree with:

johnmarron wrote:
A while back I read through the Decipher Lord of the Rings RPG.  I read over the sample characters they provided, and my eyes glazed over at the reams of numerically represented stats.  At the bottom of each character sheet was a paragraph of narrative description, and I thought to myself, "this is all I really need to protray or GM for this character".  For me, if I can get the players to put honest, thought-out Flags into that paragraph, I think I'll feel comfortable using that info to provide bangs.  Obviously, techniques to achieve this are part of the "system", I just don't want them to necessarily require bookkeeping or randomizing.

I'll give some thought to how to achieve narratively-expressed flags, and see if I can implement it in a game.  In the kind of system I'm envisioning, character "advancement" (really change) could take the form of adding and/or re-writing sentences of your character description.

John

The problem is, the GM is then faced with a group of identically-formatted laundry list of potential Markers.  But then you have to play mind-reading games to figure out which of these Markers is live and wired in to the player's interests, and which is just sitting there, spun out by the player out of Simmish interest or, worse, dredged up in order to have a filled-out character sheet. 

Hi, John. This bit stood out to me:

johnmarron wrote:
I appreciate the value of making Flags central to the game, having them right there on the sheet in front of god and everyone, and rewarding play that focuses on them, but I'm such a number-phobe that I shy away from expressing this in a non-narrative way.

Haven't posted here in years, but somebody directed me to this thread which is quite interesting.  I have a qusetion for you all...

While we don't use your terminology (Flags, Bangs, etc.) the concepts have filtered into our game play over the years.  The idea of "playing off the players" and taking what they give you in terms of positive reactions... tells... and GMing from that position... that is strong in our group... BUT... and here is the issue... I've seen what I would call a "lack of follow through" on the part of players that is quite disruptive to the group.  Basically, the player is "into" something for a session or so... which is currently driving the story arc... other players are into it as well, supporting and enjoying things in an audience kind of way... and then suddenly the next episode the player is "meh, whatever..." and lost all interest in the current story... leaving the game sputtering and the GM and players rather put off. 

So many posts on here seem to talk about GM responsibility to working to the player Flags... but what about player responsibility to see the story through... to be responsible for the enjoyment of others at the table, not just their own... to be willing to handle some player disappointment in things that don't play out EXACTLY as they want... essentially taking the bad with the good which is just a fact of life... gaming or real.

Maybe I'm missing it, but where does the player responsibility come in this?  The players need to commit to stepping up and soldiering on through the "meh" moments to find the true bangs later.  This doesn't mean every sessions/episode should be a slog (That is a clear sign of dysfunction in the game.) but a single episode could be in the context of a larger, long term arc that really explores what they enjoy. 

I guess the question is, don't you feel that individual players have responsibility to the positive experience of the group as a whole, and not just to their own short terms whims?  (Again, I could be misreading, but I just haven't seen anything about player responsibility... just GM responsibility.)

Example: 

Michael wrote:

I'm trying to figure out whether you're objecting to Flags tied to the dice system, or objecting to Flags tied to the capital-"S" System.

RDU wrote:
  I guess the question is, don't you feel that individual players have responsibility to the positive experience of the group as a whole, and not just to their own short terms whims?  (Again, I could be misreading, but I just haven't seen anything about player responsibility... just GM responsibility.)

Example: 

Hi, John.

Like Judd, I really don't get the minimalist thing sometimes. I only understand part of it. To me, it seems like you don't want to put numbers to the most important stuff. If having too many stats on a page is a problem, then the solution is to hardwire the Flags and drop all that other stuff. I mean, what's really important:  character abilities or character flags?  If I've got to choose between the two, I want Flags tied into the mechanics (and with numbers on them). Obviously, this a GNS sort of question. Sim may require more than just Flags, I guess.

For example, after looking over a character sheet from an old detailed game I played in, I can summarize all the skills, abilities, and what-not into the four Flag stats below. As a player, those are all I really needed because they are what I wanted to say with the character. I easily could have replaced all that other stuff with these. Stick a number on each, tie in a Humanity stat, provide a Life rating, and I'd be good. (I'd need to be able to shift them, of course.)

1. Own a whorehouse.
2. Heroic despite others' expectations.
3. Master the arts of necromancy.
4. Stay alive.

David wrote:
For example, after looking over a character sheet from an old detailed game I played in, I can summarize all the skills, abilities, and what-not into the four Flag stats below. As a player, those are all I really needed because they are what I wanted to say with the character. I easily could have replaced all that other stuff with these. Stick a number on each, tie in a Humanity stat, provide a Life rating, and I'd be good. (I'd need to be able to shift them, of course.)

1. Own a whorehouse.
2. Heroic despite others' expectations.
3. Master the arts of necromancy.
4. Stay alive.

RDU wrote: So many posts on here seem to talk about GM responsibility to working to the player Flags... but what about player responsibility to see the story through... to be responsible for the enjoyment of others at the table, not just their own... to be willing to handle some player disappointment in things that don't play out EXACTLY as they want... essentially taking the bad with the good which is just a fact of life... gaming or real.

I guess the question is, don't you feel that individual players have responsibility to the positive experience of the group as a whole, and not just to their own short terms whims?

johnmarron wrote:

David,

   That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for, but I don't see the need to "stick a number on each". 

John

Emily wrote:

And in both these games, it is the GM's responsibility to keep everyone on target, to provide appropriate adversity so that the issues and aspects folks have chosen will sizzle not fizzle.

I guess the question is, don't you feel that individual players have responsibility to the positive experience of the group as a whole, and not just to their own short terms whims?

Now that's an interesting question, and may be a good candidate for AP discussion. Techniques can be designed to give players the tools to author their compelling stories, but how are they wedded together & what kind of long-term commitment do they impel people to make?

RDU wrote:
I think I find the bolded phrase above to be the most problematic.  What is "appropriate adversity" is never as simple as it sounds.  Who determines the level of appropriate?  If the player is put out by what the GM provides, is the GM supposed to change to appease the player?  Player goes with the GM?  Who makes the call?  [/qupte]

Simple answer: group as a whole.

More complex answers I'm going to want some more actual play to talk about. Going off the cliff into ultimate abstraction may not help us here.

Anyone got stories of when the "appropriate adversity" didn't work out? (I know you do, now spill!)

Creativty within boundaries should also reflect shifting Flags within boundaries... player's should have a holistic sense of the game and play within those boundaries as much as the GM should use those boundaries to "keep everyone on target." 

That's a large part of what Chris and I were saying above -- the ability to shift flags (and emphasis on flags) durring play is an important part of the process. If you get flags that you're stuck with forever and ever it can suck bad. But if you can get rid of or change your flags in various ways, then it lets you open a communication channel with the GM.

I have an AP example of this one. In an Exalted game I was GMing I had a player who had a massive Valor score (5, I think, which is as high as you can get as a mortal). As a result I was often hammering on the character's courage, putting her to the task about "will you stand up to this? for this? what about that? for which? what about when it costs this? when that?" The player had a lot of fun with this, for a time, but eventually got tired of it and wanted a change. She wanted to dump down her Valor score and buy up her Compassion and start to have challenges related to love and peace -- basically doing an Asoka story. (Vicious warrior king becomes compassionate Buddhist monk king, for those without the India fascination.)

So one day we're about to start playing, people are spending their Xp, and the player says to me, "How much does it cost to raise Compassion" and I say "X amount." Then she makes a face, looks at her sheet, and says, "And how much can I sell off dots for?" I am at this point not paying attention and say, "You can't, really. The system doesn't allow for that." So she unhappily sets about raising her Compassion, about half as much as she wanted to, and leaves her Valor really high. As a result, I start pounding on her Valor again.

She isn't so happy with the game, but luckily focuses her anger on the system rather than me. We're talking about game later and suddenly she's saying how much she hates the Exalted system – which is really new for her. So I start asking why, and she gets into the inflexibility of stats and the XP system and such. I say something about charms and game balance, and she snaps, "No idiot, I mean in the… the… author stance things that make the game run Nar!" This from a woman who had been pretty hostile to the whole talk of Nar and stances and such.

We finally figure out what is what, and I let her sell off Valor 2 to 1 for Compassion, and she resets her sheet the way she wants. I look at her new stats and then start to hammer on her Compassion. She is happy. I am happy. Yay.

This is why I have a growing fondness for games that have ways to mess with your "flags" in a more free manner. Be it Burning Wheel's trait votes, With Great Power's ability to shift your focus attribute between games, or Shadow of Yesterday's keys, the ability to move those things around is a key element in keeping the channels of communication open.

I think it's worth noting that OTE, out of the box, is a very flag-central system (in fact, IIRC, the GMing advice does include paying attention to the "flag" aspects of the characters).

What helps a lot there, of course, is that there are -so- few aspects to the characters (3 traits, with the extra markers "central" and "superior" to help further determine the flag-importants, plus a flaw, a "most important person", a secret, and signs for the traits and flaw) that it's harder to accidentally mask out information (like the above example, where the player took a lot of combat schticks because they wanted not to lose combats, not because they wanted to -fight- lots of combats) -- a player who's taking a combat trait "just in case" probably won't slap "central" or "superior" onto it, and if they do, will likely add enough other flavor to make it at least -somewhat- clearer what they mean.

That said, making sure the -players- are aware of this aspect of negotiation is very important, for obviosu reasons.

I think this is particularly important in low Point of Contact Sim (like, say, almost every game I play that isn't trying out a Forgey narr game), because this approach gives the players a good way of influencing the story and pushing it in the ways they're interested in without breaking out of "character space".

That said, what OTE didn't really provide was a way to shift your flags around, though being the kind of player/GM I am, the solution is obvious "you can completely re-define your character between sessions as long as you run it past me -- no, really".  But there are groups for which this doesn't work as well, of course. (though a slower "aging" mechanic that involved shfiting characters around would work more or less the same way over the long run without opening things up to gamer abuse)

Simple answer: group as a whole.

Brand_Robins wrote: Simple answer: group as a whole.

More complex answers I'm going to want some more actual play to talk about. Going off the cliff into ultimate abstraction may not help us here.

Anyone got stories of when the "appropriate adversity" didn't work out? (I know you do, now spill!)

Storn wrote:

But the above answer nails it for me.  Stakes can create investment for everyone at the table.  If we are all interested in the "Vampire getting Bearded in his lair" then everyone is paying attention, everyone is contributing... even if it is with quiet,tacit aproval of the Stakes being set between GM and Player X.

Also, that prompt of coming up with the Stake forcing me as a GM to be more clear about HOW i'm percieving the current situation.  Always a good thing to strive for.  How can Players make informed choices if their GM is vague?

Hmmmm.... Informed Choice.   That is what excites the Player side of me.

Assuming that one player choosing to set Stakes interests or demands the investment of everyone at the table.  This could be true, but just as often not.  That tacit approval could actually be somone to shy to speak up or just not caring.  We can't assume that Stakes will drive player involvement any more than task resolution and "oooh he missed his roll, what does the GM have happen?" drives player interaction.

Example:  A player wants their character to enter the fray by swinging on the chandolier with such amazing grace and aplomb that not only do they get a typical combat advantage, but they win the hearts of the ladies and the admiration of the men for their daring do!  As a GM, I reply... ok... but if you fail the task... it may hurt your combat situation a bit, but win or lose the fight the charater is humiliated... utterly a laughing stock for many adventures to come."    Thus, the player can choose to go ahead or say, "Man, the idea of role playing out being a laughing stock just sounds totally unfun... I retract my Stakes."

I would argue that it is not "always a good thing" to have clear Stakes vs. uncertainty.  They are both valuable commodities in a game.  See my thread on Stakes before Sim...  Dramatic, involved games have tension... but where that tension is derived can be fun or uncomfortable depending on the situation and player preferences.  By saying "Informed Choice" excites you, you are indicating that you prefer Stakes Tension compared to Uncertainty Tension.

johnmarron wrote: 1. Own a whorehouse.
2. Heroic despite others' expectations.
3. Master the arts of necromancy.
4. Stay alive.

Guys, we're starting to drift this thread pretty heavily with our talk of Stakes. We've got another thread about it right here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18092.0 -- perhaps we should talk about stakes there?

Or heck, at this point I think we could spin off multiple new threads. The stuff is worth it, lets get it its own threads where it can shine.

This is all about getting from Character to Situation. Traditionally, it's been the realm of the GM to figure out how the fuck to do that, and game texts haven't been helpful. Flags aren't enough. The other players need to know why you're waving that flag and what you hope to get out of play with it.

Giving some or all scene-framing power to the players is the other critical component. PtA lets you say, "I want a scene about X" and the GM/Producer frames the scene accordingly. Other games give more power to the players but the complaint is that it spoils immersion, whatever that is. ;) I think the scene-request style in PtA is a nice compromise.

Ideally -- say I, at first blush -- the scenario (Situation) should create itself from the character sheets and a simple process everyone can follow. But then I look at Dogs in the Vineyard and wonder if that's true there. I think it is. Town creation is a Setting process. The Situation is where Setting and Character clash. Dogs cleverly handles the Character --> Situation problem by putting it all in the hands of the players. Dump the Characters in the Setting and as players learn stuff they start reacting and Situation just happens. The rules are all about making sure nothing happens to prevent that ("Don't play God," etc.). But does Dogs use flags at all? I don't think so. I don't think the GM is really looking at the character sheets for things to push into the Situation. The GM is looking at the Situation to find ways to escalate to new Situations. The player brings in the things he cares about (traits) via dice mechanics. I think Dogs is a great example of a game that works without flags. Would it be a better game if there was a way for the GM to trigger more Situation involving a character's traits? I dunno, and I won't presume to improve a game that good.

Adam wrote:
But then I look at Dogs in the Vineyard and wonder if that's true there.

Hi,

Dogs' flags come in two ways- Stakes & Fallout.  A player arguing for "Do we kill him?" vs. "Do we redeem him?" are saying something right to the GM's face.  Fallout also tends to flag things because players will add or change Traits, Relationships, etc. that matter- the ones they don't care about tend to stay the same.

Chris

Adam, that link to the individual characters is the one thing that I find missing from the superlative Town Creation rules in Dogs.  As Brand points out, the GM can plan Towns in accordance with what's on character sheets (although that's a Good GM technique not specified in the Town Creation procedure), the "I'm a Dog" is always relevant, and the GM is directed to watch player judgments and push them in the next town.  And it works, sure, but I'm looking forward to the next step as you lay out, a specific procedure (like Dogs) that creates the Situation directly off of player input / character sheets.  Shock: does this; FLFS does this.  I believe PtA does this, but I think the gaming gods do not want me to play that game.

In any case, I want to see the procedure go:

Player Preferences -> Character Sheet -> Premise -> Situation Creation -> Scene Framing -> Roleplay

The straighter that arrow, the more on-target the game experience (I suspect).

I don't mean to pick on Brand, but I clicked "Quote" on his post. This applies to what Chris said, too.

Brand_Robins wrote:
Dogs has flags, they just aren't as strong or direct as those in other games. Relationships and traits often tell the GM something about the kinds of choices players are going to want to make. For example, in my online Dogs game there is a female character who has a relationship with another woman that is set at something like "The girl that wanted me to stay with her" and is explained as the Dog's (chaste) love that the character fled from because she wasn't sure how to deal with her feelings in the context of her faith.

This also becomes a circular prosses as you go on. Dogs come into those preset situations, pick up fallout and do judgement and the GM watches what fallout they take and what judgements they make. He then pushes on those. Every judgement you make in Dogs is a kind of flag: because its a signal to the GM "push this issue harder in the next town." It's just that the flag comes up in play, in that fruitful void at the center of Dogs, rather than beign on the character sheet. I'd say that's fitting, and works, because in the end it isn't a Character Flag. It is a Player Flag.

Adam wrote:
I don't mean to pick on Brand, but I clicked "Quote" on his post. This applies to what Chris said, too.

Adam,

you're right.  Sorry for confusing the discussion.

Chris

Paka wrote:
One of those off-the-fly games was set on the under-side of the Spelljammer setting's Rock of Bral, a place I was enamored with.  I decided it was a prison and the game would be set there.  The only guidance I gave the players during chargen was that they were in the Rock for a crime and they weren't framed.  Whatever it was, they did it.

I filled a notebook page with the guards' names, the warden and other prisoners.  Of course these other prisoners, all Drow, Yuan-ti, a Ronin Space Captain from the Imperial Navy were all bangs.  I didn't realize what I had to have down until years later but I had to have bangs, situations the players felt compelled to react to and deal with.